


you were meant for love

by otterlymagic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21854932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otterlymagic/pseuds/otterlymagic
Summary: (TROS SPOILERS) This is how *that* scene should have gone (you know which scene). More spoilery author notes inside - I will update the summary once the movie's been out for a couple weeks.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 11
Kudos: 105
Collections: The Rise of Skywalker: Fix-It Fic Edition





	you were meant for love

**Author's Note:**

> I was a Reylo/Bendemptionist back in 2015 but wasn't in a fic-writing mood for the past few years, just lurked around enjoying everyone else's writing. That changed a couple days ago. I figure we need all the positivity we can get in this fandom. 
> 
> So I decided to move on from my depression after being spoiled for TRoS by writing my ideal version of the scenario they set up in the movie. My goal was to finish writing it feeling blissfully happy about the characters' futures - and hopefully that's what you feel after reading this too

Ben is used to pain. There’s not a memory he can pull to mind, even the earliest, when he was so small that the world was a big blur of light and sound, that is free of pain. Yet the way the Force rips through him when Rey dies is worse than anything he could have imagined. It doesn’t kill him, and he wonders why. How can he not be dead from this?

Then he knows. Oh, of course. There is still something he can do. Something that will give meaning to it all. The Force brought them together – even if it was just for  _ this _ , it will have been worth it.

His broken body screams and he pays it no mind as he pulls himself across the crumbled stones, inch by inch and foot by foot, until he is at her side. She is small, so small, in his arms. Still warm. Her eyes blank, but with the ghost of determination left in them. For a moment he can only hold her and tremble with the agony of it.

He has never understood the stories he heard of the past, where Light defeats Dark through love and sacrifice. They seem straightforward to everyone else, but they have always rung hollow to him. What could that love possibly feel like? What feeling could be so strong that it would birth hope into existence, and turn tragedy to redemption? He’s devoured all the histories. He knows the stories of Revan, of Anakin, of Obi-Wan, of Luke. They never made sense until now.

_ I want to be free of this pain. _ No. That mantra is no longer valid. That is not his deepest desire anymore.

His hand cradles her head, and her face is so, so beautiful, even after she has given her life for others. He would gladly suffer torment for eternity just to see her smile, and live, and get everything she has ever wanted. It is a love that burns stronger than the pain – even the pain of an eternal Force Bond that has been severed – and he knows, once and for all, that this is his purpose.

The Light has always been calling to him and it was so that he could do this. To save her and give her a second chance, after she gave them to so many others.

His life, what is left of it, pulses in time with the heartbeat of the universe. In this moment he is one with the Force and the Force is with him. Ben takes one deep breath in, and when he breathes out, he offers up his very life.

His offering is accepted. She lives. The pain is finally gone.

She smiles, and he cannot remember what pain felt like.

She kisses him, and it is everything he longed for and never thought he could have.

She has a life again. He managed to deliver her one last gift. It is done. 

He cannot hold on any longer – the Force is calling him away. One second, two seconds, three seconds, and the call is too strong. He waits for it to go dark so he can be at peace. Is this not the end?

The darkness doesn’t come.

Everything is empty for only a moment. In the Force his broken body is gone, he is whole, his purpose is fulfilled – but oh, no, there is the pain again. The bond is severed once again. He is tethered to Rey, even beyond life. The realization is dizzying and then– –

“Ben?”

It is a moment beyond comprehension when he sees his mother before him. The Force holds them together in this place that is beyond existence, this world between worlds, and they are standing just a few steps apart. His mother is with him at the end of it all. Her face lined with wrinkles, her back bowed with age, and yet it is the first time he has seen her eyes without sorrow in them.

“You came back to me,” she whispers, and smiles.

The pain in his chest becomes something more, and he crumbles. Lost and found all at once, he steps forward and lets her take him into her arms. So many years he has spent imagining that she would never want to see him again, and those imaginations are proven to be lies now.

His mother clutches her to him, with a love that is warm and soothes old hurts, the scar tissue on his heart, the damage that has defined his world. 

“I love you,” he manages through tears.

“And I have  _ always _ loved you,” she says back. “My son.”

This is a hurt that he does not mind – after a life of pain, it barely registers that this hurts too, because it is good. It is good. He weeps in her arms, for this is forgiveness that he did not expect or even dare to hope for.

Finally she pulls away, looks up, cradles his cheek in her hand. There is such peace on her face, such love, the depth of which he is only now beginning to understand. “Oh, my son,” she says, a dozen emotions in her voice.

“I came home,” he tells her.

To his surprise, she shakes her head. “Not yet.”

This, he does not understand.

She pulls his hand and leads him away. There is a low throb of agony in his chest, but he is still more whole than he has ever been, and he has found himself, and found forgiveness, so how can this not be home?

Suddenly there is his father. It is real, this time, not just a memory. In the Force, even his father has found peace. Ben hesitates, not wanting to ruin it all.

“Come here, big guy,” his father says, with a faded grin that is free of regrets.

He has never wept like this before. He has never been held like this before.

This is family. Why did his mother say it wasn’t home yet? Isn’t this a home?

“You found the right path in the end,” says his father, laying one hand on Ben’s shoulder after he releases him from the embrace. “I knew you would.”

“I’m sorry,” he cannot help but whisper. “I did so mu—”

“Don't spend too much time on a past you cannot change.” Luke’s voice rings in his ear, and for the first time, Ben hears only love in it. He turns to see his uncle joining them, unafraid. Luke is smiling and he reaches out a hand. “I am so sorry, Ben, for my part in all this.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ben says. It doesn’t. It is over. Rey saved the galaxy and he saved Rey and nothing else matters anymore. “I did what I had to do, and then I came home.”

“He doesn’t understand,” says his mother with a smile, and she reaches out to take one of Ben’s hands and one of Han’s. Joining their family for the first time in almost twenty years.

Luke snorts and shakes his head, and his eyes are lit with pride when he looks at Ben. “You’re no Vader, kid. You are not even Anakin Skywalker.”

“I know,” Ben says, confused, and he has no heart in this world between worlds, but if he did it would be pulsing with confusion. “I saved her. I made it right.”

“And yet you think you will share his fate?” Luke asks.

It is a question that Ben does not comprehend. He has  _ met  _ his fate. Why are they speaking as if he is not here, his spirit released from the living world, one with the Force the way that they are also.

“This isn’t your home yet, kid.” Han takes Ben’s other hand and squeezes it. “It’s a great place but…you’re not ready.”

Ben starts to panic. “No, I am – I am – “ This acceptance, this forgiveness, has he only imagined it? Will it, too, be ripped from him?

“Rey,” his mother says, firmly and with a smile.

“I saved her,” he says, stubborn even as panic threatens to overwhelm him.

“And then you’re just going to leave her?” Luke asks.

“I brought her back from death. It was a sacrifice. It—”

“The Force bound you two together,” his mother says, and reaches up to touch his cheek. “You felt it, didn’t you?”

He stares at the three of them, his family, as they look back at him and expect him to know…something. Of course he felt it. It is there, in what would be his chest if he was still alive. Where he imagines his soul to be, there is an emptiness, a throbbing wound, that he knows cannot be healed even with all the love he sees before him.

Then he remembers how it felt when she died. His sacrifice is not without a cost. Oh, oh no, now he understands. Somewhere, she is alive, but with a matching wound in her soul, a devastation left by his loss. His confusion and panic turns into sorrow, almost horror, and he thinks that maybe he knows what they are telling him.

“The Force isn’t done with you,” Han says at last, shrugging. “I think it might actually know what’s best for you, too, so don’t fight it.”

“Han’s right,” Luke says, with a wry grin. He reaches out and puts a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “We’ll always be with you, but you’re not ready to be with us.”

His mother tugs him a little closer, pulling his head and shoulders down so she can kiss his forehead. Her lips are soft and warm – he closes his eyes to accept it. “Go to her,” she says, with all the authority of a queen and a general and a mother. “Make her happy. Make the both of you happy. Make the galaxy a better place, like we always wanted to.”

It is too much, and his eyes are full of tears, and they are smiling at him but all he can say is, “I don’t know how.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Luke says.

“Go on,” Han says. “Go home.”

His mother strokes his cheek one last time and then she lets go, and smiles, and they are surrounding him. Ben closes his eyes and wonders how, how this could possibly be his fate, when it had felt so certain moments before. But there is the Force, flowing through him, and it is all light. It is a river ready to carry him away, if he lets it.

Of course it is. The Force would not create the bond between them only to let it be broken for eternity. That would be cruel and pointless. So much of his life has seemed cruel and pointless, but now, now he thinks he understands. He was always meant for love. The Dark fought to keep him from it, but now the Dark has been defeated and there is nothing holding him back from his purpose.

He was meant to save Rey, not with his death, but with his life. He was meant to love her and to be loved.

Instead of going dark, everything goes to pure white light. The Force takes him back. 

Ben inhales sharply, and the air is crisp as it fills his lungs. He opens his eyes to see sky above him and feel sand beneath his back – to feel his body, unbroken and solid – and then he feels the wound in his chest fade away.

He is alive and the pain is gone.

Ben rises to his feet so fast that it feels like the world spins around him. She is here. He can feel it. Beyond all life and death and despair and hope, he  _ knows _ it. There are two suns above him, dunes stretching to the horizon, and a small domed homestead right in front of him. This is Tatooine. Why she is on Tatooine, he cannot imagine, but she is.

The door to the homestead opens and he sees Rey there, still in her Jakku rags, alive but hesitant. Hopeful and yet still on guard. She has one hand pressed to her chest, and he can feel that for her, too, the pain is now gone, and she needs to know why.

Her eyes flit upward. “Ben!” she calls, and her voice cracks with the transformation of sorrow to joy.

She runs to him, he runs to her, they crash together and for the last time today he feels tears stream down his face. 

Rey lets out a cry before he presses his lips to hers, once and twice and thrice. She is alive in his arms and he can feel the flutter of her heartbeat, the tug of the Force bond between them, the promise of life.

This is what they were always meant to be.

She laughs when she breaks away from the third kiss and looks him up and down before kissing him again, crushing her lips to his as if to make sure he feels it all the way to his bones.

Ben has never felt so free, so happy. He might never stop smiling, if he ever stops kissing her.

“You’re alive,” she whispers against his lips, on the tips of her toes, with her arms tightly around his waist. “I thought…I thought I was alone again.”

“Never,” he promises, fierce and happy. “Never again.”

She kisses him once more. As small as she is in his arms, her joy is so great that he’s surprised the force of it doesn’t knock him over into the sand. He lifts and spins her around in a circle, heart overflowing, and she laughs again as they twirl. 

“Why are we here?” he asks, when they finally pause. He snorts and gestures around them. “Tatooine?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I couldn’t move on, so I just…went back.”

“You deserve more,” he says, and leans down to press his forehead to hers. Remembering what his mother said, he adds, “We can make the galaxy a better place and we can live in it. Not on this desert trash heap of a planet.”

Rey grins a little, her eyes sparkling. “It’s not a  _ trash heap _ , you know. People live here.”

“Not us,” he says, and kisses the tip of her nose. “Not ever.”

He can feel the gratitude through their bond.

“I haven’t been to a lot of worlds,” she says. “I don’t care where we go. I only picked here because, well, I thought I’d feel less alone if I was somewhere that someone else had called home.” Even as she says it, she gives a sheepish shrug. He understands – they’ve all made choices that don’t make sense, when in pain.

When he looks at her, he understands what his family meant. This is home. Home is anywhere with her.

“Come with me,” he asks, softly. It is the least desperate he’s ever been when asking her this question.

And as she once promised, she smiles and says, “Anywhere.”

Ben swallows and cocks his head to the side, rolling some words around in his mouth before he says them. It’s still new, this painless joy, and he savors it. Finally he asks, “Do you still have the Falcon?”

Her grin is brighter than both of Tatooine’s suns. “I do.”

He takes her hand in his and squeezes it. “Then let’s go home.”

“Take me home, Ben Solo,” she says, carelessly happy.

“Only if you let me be your copilot, Rey Solo,” he replies, unable to keep from grinning back.

She giggles and snorts. It is ridiculous. It is precious. “I love you,” she says, with the undertone of  _ idiot _ that he has heard in a dozen other people's voices but has never sounded sweet until now.

“Oh, so  _ that’s  _ what it takes to get you to say it,” he says, giving her hand another squeeze. “Be embarrassing, earn Rey’s love?”

She glares, half-heartedly.

“I love you too,” he says.

The suns set behind them as they walk toward the future, hand in hand.


End file.
